An Ever-Fixed Mark
by Lady-of-the-Refrigerator
Summary: Without a word, he slipped his jacket from his shoulders and wrapped it around her. She hesitated only a moment before sliding her arms into the sleeves, grateful for the length of them as much as the warmth. The jacket did a much better job hiding the words on her forearm than the blanket the EMTs gave her. [Sequel to Indelible Ink, Soulmate AU, 4/5]
1. Chapter 1

AN: Back by popular demand. :P I highly recommend reading Indelible Ink first, if you've somehow stumbled across this without doing so.

* * *

He climbed into the ambulance and lowered himself onto the bench next to her, stiff-limbed and weary. She wondered when he'd last slept.

He'd saved her life at the expense of someone else's twice now. (That she knew of.) She wanted to call him a monster for what he did, but she remembered the sensation of his hot blood running between her fingers, of metal puncturing skin and muscle and sinew, and she bit her tongue, swallowed the bile rising in her throat. Maybe he wasn't any better than Kornish, but she wasn't any better than him.

Without a word, he slipped his jacket from his shoulders and wrapped it around her. She hesitated only a moment before sliding her arms into the sleeves, grateful for the length of them as much as the warmth. The jacket did a much better job hiding the words on her forearm than the blanket the EMTs gave her.

They sat straight-backed and rigid as the ambulance started its bumpy trek out of the woods. For some reason, his presence grounded her; she knew if she allowed herself to unbend at all, she might end up resting her head on his shoulder and that was a line she wasn't sure she could cross and come back from.

* * *

The words of Kornish's tattoo would haunt her for days, she was sure of it. She had no choice but to see them; if his modus operandi hadn't involved stripping nude she might have been spared. She saw them now on the backs of her eyelids in negative, like a flashbulb going off, every time she closed her eyes—_No, please don't!_ The connotation was horrific. She was suddenly grateful that even though she was fated to have a criminal for a soulmate, she ended up with one more likely to save her life than end it.

She shook herself and tried to focus on the conversation happening around her, one that she was _supposed_ to be an active participant in if her mind would just stop wandering. She'd been poked and prodded and given a clean bill of health. Now Ressler and Meera were taking the opportunity to question/debrief her while she was still a captive audience.

"I've hunted Reddington for five years and I've never seen him like that. I thought he was going to _eat_ Lorca if he didn't tell us how to contact Kornish. Whatever he plans to use you for, Keen, good luck. It must be pretty goddamn important to him."

Liz hugged Red's jacket around herself and nodded, fighting the obsessive need to keep checking that her tattoo was still covered.

* * *

He was waiting for her when they released her a half hour later.

He looked cold, but he wouldn't ask for his jacket back and she certainly wouldn't offer it until she was far away from anyone who was there the day he spoke the words it covered.

"Do you mind if I catch a ride with you?"

A brief flicker of surprise crossed his face and she almost smiled.

"Lizzy, my car won't exactly pass for an FBI carpool," he said, even as he tucked his hand into the crook of her elbow and started walking over to the vehicle in question.

"I'm not asking you to drive me home, Red. I can't go home. Not now. Tom's gonna to want an explanation and I can't handle going from one interrogation to another. I need to just… be."

"And you want to just be, with me? You've come a long way from attempted murder."

"You've come a long way from trying to kill my husband."

_You make me feel safe. A side effect of repeatedly saving my life, who would have guessed_? she thought. _That's what I need right now. Tom isn't safe anymore._

She wouldn't tell him any of that.

* * *

He held a mug out to her and waited for her to wrap her hands around the heated ceramic before he sat down next to her and did the same with his own.

"Warm milk?" she asked, with an eyebrow raised. He shrugged.

"Old habit from childhood. At this point, I think I get more comfort from the nostalgia of it than anything in the milk itself, but if it works, it works."

She took a cautious sip, not wishing to add burnt taste buds to her list of aches and pains. What a strange turn her life had taken in the last day or so. She went from being kidnapped, tortured, and nearly dissolved in a vat of chemicals, to sitting in a hotel room next to The Concierge of Crime, sipping warm milk.

Her thoughts ran a mile a minute, her emotions both familiar and foreign. It seemed like she was borrowing someone else's unease and worry on top of her own lingering fear and the almost overwhelming dread she felt at having to convince Tom she didn't want to quit her job even though she almost died.

She shot a furtive glance at Red only to find him shooting one back at her. His gaze skittered away from hers and his pinched expression twisted into an attempt at a smile. Next to the brilliant, reassuring smile he'd given her when Kornish's drugs started to wear off, it was hardly even a grimace.

"I can feel your anxiety from here, Lizzy."

"I don't understand what's wrong with me," she said. "By rights, I should be exhausted, but I feel like I just drank an entire pot of coffee with a Red Bull chaser and the only time I can relax at all is when—" He reached out and took her hand; the relief was complete and immediate and she choked back a sob when she met his watery eyes.

"You feel it, too."

"I do," he said. "Touch… it helps somehow."

He set their empty mugs on the coffee table and turned to her, taking both of her hands in his this time.

"You're alive," he said, rubbing his thumbs back and forth. "You'll be fine." He sounded like he was reminding himself as much as her, but a tiny piece of the knot in her chest loosened with every movement of his thumbs all the same.

"I meant what I said. I can feel your anxiety. When you were taken, I…" His voice broke and he swallowed hard, struggling for words. "I could feel your fear. It took me a while to realize what was happening because the emotions would ebb and flow, but once I did… I was afraid each time they faded that they wouldn't come back. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't find you in time."

"But you did," she said, squeezing his hands in hers. His smile came a little easier and some of the tension in his shoulders eased.

He pushed the loose sleeve of his jacket up her arm and traced his fingers along her tattoo.

"I want you to know," he said, his voice serious, solemn. "I would have done the same even without this."

She nodded and, before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his stubbled cheek; she tucked herself into his side and pulled his arm around her.

His hand found its way inside the jacket and under the hem of her shirt. It was warm and dry against her skin, the touch soothing and intimate; not sexual, but certainly far from appropriate. Logically, she knew she should protest, but every fiber of her being sang at the contact; it felt too pleasant—too _right_—to shy away from. She worked her fingers between the buttons on his dress shirt to touch his skin in return.

The last wisps of stress evaporated as her thoughts finally began to quiet, soon to be drowned out by the steady beating of his heart under her ear as she drifted off to sleep.

Life was too short for arbitrary boundaries.


	2. Chapter 2

Liz yawned and stretched as well as she could under the pleasant weight of someone else's limbs. She'd obviously fallen asleep on the couch again, something that was becoming disturbingly close to a habit lately. It wasn't like Tom to join her when she didn't make it to bed, but she wasn't about to complain. She pressed herself into the warmth and tried to drift off to sleep again. A masculine hum of approval rumbled through the chest under her ear and she stiffened.

That most definitely wasn't Tom.

Her eyes popped open and memories of the last couple days flooded back to the forefront of her mind.

The case against Lorca falling apart.

The kidnapping and the torture.

The rescue.

The warm milk.

She had fallen asleep in Raymond Reddington's arms—by choice, no less. She chose him over going home to her husband, who was probably worried sick by now. Maybe. Perhaps.

Liz waited for the inevitable embarrassment and awkwardness to settle in her gut, but it never came. She relaxed against Red's side, glancing up to see him watching her with a look on his face she could only describe as serene.

"Morning, sweetheart." He leaned in and pressed a peck of a kiss near the corner of her mouth. The spot tingled. "How do you feel?"

"Like I spent the night running through the woods being chased by a monster and then slept on a couch. Other than that…"—she shrugged with the shoulder Kornish hadn't prodded with long, sharp metal objects—"better."

He pressed another kiss next to her lips, and lingered this time. She felt his smile against her cheek.

A month ago, if someone asked Liz if she had ever thought about being unfaithful to her husband, she would have laughed in their face. Today, the temptation to turn and kiss Red properly was there, and it was strong.

Another key piece of information from the night before came back to her and she hoped beyond hope that Red couldn't feel what she was feeling right now. She untangled herself and stood up, perhaps a bit too quickly to brush off as casual.

"You're welcome to stay for breakfast." He checked his watch and his cheek twitched. "I know it's late, but I have a standing order with the kitchen and they always send more food than one person could ever eat."

"I can't avoid Tom forever."

Judging by the look on Red's face, he disagreed, but he didn't argue the point. Instead, ever practical, he said, "He'll be easier to deal with on a full stomach."

She was about to turn down the offer, but her stomach had other ideas and growled at the mention of food. Loudly. She sighed and nodded when it was obvious he hadn't missed the sound. Leaving now would only make her stubborn and hungry.

"I wouldn't worry too much about what he'll think. You show up looking like you do right now and he'll believe whatever you tell him."

She glanced up to check her reflection in the ornate mirror on the wall and winced.

"Gee, thanks a lot."

She combed her fingers through her tangled hair, tried to make herself at least somewhat presentable. Red came up behind her and placed a hand gently on her back, stilling her movement.

"Lizzy, you're a beautiful woman, but you've been through a traumatic experience and you certainly look the part. I know I'm not much better off."

She took in his disheveled appearance over her shoulder in the mirror—the rumpled clothes, the day and a half of stubble on his face, the way his shirt collar stuck up on one side. He was a mess, all right, and he didn't appear to be self-conscious about it. It was endearing as hell. Humanizing.

She didn't want to go home.

Damn it.

"Use his sympathy to your advantage. Whether it's really there or he has to fake it, eke out every last drop he can muster. I'm sure he did the same to you when he was recovering."

Liz frowned. There was more truth to that than she wanted to admit.

Red held her gaze in the mirror until a knock at the door startled them both. He excused himself to answer it and she felt the loss of warmth between her shoulder blades like she'd been doused in ice water. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was going to become a problem.

"I hope there's something you like," he said, wheeling a room service table over to the couch. He seemed nervous, sort of like her college boyfriend the first time she stayed the night in his tiny apartment and he tried to make her breakfast in bed. (She used to catch the poor kid looking forlornly at her tattoo and his own all the time; she was pretty sure she broke his heart long before she broke up with him. If only he could see her now.)

"I'll eat almost anything at this point, just please, God, don't let it be pancakes."

"I feel like there's a story behind that worth hearing," he said, a faint, inquisitive smile on his face, "but don't worry. This isn't really a pancake kind of place."


	3. Chapter 3

Liz was going to kill her husband. She was. It was only a matter of time.

Everything about Tom was beginning to grate on her. What a month ago might have seemed innocent—if a little overbearing—now held an undertone of malice she just couldn't shake. The way he woke with the sun and, between him and Hudson, made sure she did as well. His constant need to tell her she was an open book and he always knew what she was thinking, while at the same time complaining that she didn't share enough with him. His goddamn gluten-free pancakes.

When he dared to tell her he had scheduled an ultrasound without consulting her as if they were going to go through with the adoption like nothing had changed, Liz couldn't let it stand. She accused him of trying to manipulate her. He had no right to tell her they needed to talk and then go behind her back to make decisions before they had the chance to do so. It made it a lot harder to disagree with him and his choices if plans were already in place. It made her feel obligated and going along with something out of obligation just wasn't the same as agreement.

Tom was none too pleased by the accusation and rather than consider Liz's worries, he lashed out at her. He told her it was just as well they didn't adopt because the kid was bound to end up an orphan sooner or later and there was no need to perpetuate that for another generation. She nearly punched him.

She had been on edge ever since.

The debacle at the farmer's market only made Liz's state of mind worse, leaving her and the rest of her team bedraggled and worn out and more than a little disheartened despite the technically successful apprehension of The Courier. They were patching up their various bumps and bruises after the chase when—unfortunately for Liz—something caught Ressler's eye.

"What the hell is that, Keen?"

Liz followed his line of sight and blanched. After she was kidnapped, she started using make-up to hide her tattoo whether or not she wore long sleeves; some of it had smudged off in the sweat and grime, and a few bright red letters were visible along her forearm.

"None of your business, that's what," she snapped, quickly wrapping a couple spare lengths of gauze around her tattoo. She would have been OK with literally anyone else in the world save Cooper seeing it, but of course it had to be Ressler.

"Was that your tattoo? We all have them, why bother hiding it?"

"Maybe I want to preserve the last illusion of privacy I have in this scrutinized hell that is my life. Maybe I just want to be left alone for once."

Ressler blinked in confusion at the venom in Liz's voice and turned to Meera.

"I don't get it," he said, not as quietly as he should have. "Unless it's me, and I _know_ it's not me, what's the big deal? It won't mean anything to me."

"If it won't mean anything to you, back off," Liz yelled over her shoulder as she stormed away in search of a ride back to the Post Office. She was getting antsy again, in a way that could only be solved by being near Red, and he was sure to show his face soon enough after this disaster of an operation. Her apprehension fueled his and filtered back to her in a weird sort of feedback loop. This soulmate bullshit would be the death of her yet.

* * *

Red strode into the Post Office flanked by Dembe, who watched him warily. He was a man on a warpath, anger and annoyance radiating off him in waves. Needless to say, it hit Liz especially hard; she had never been more pleased that his ire wasn't directed at her.

His gaze, however, was. He eyed the gauze around her forearm, concern clear in his expression, and she gave a short, stiff shake of her head. He pursed his lips, obviously unhappy with the lack of explanation, but he spotted Ressler and another surge of borrowed anger ran through her.

"Is _that_ what you call an undercover operation, Agent Ressler? The Courier opened fire on a crowd of civilians, anyone could have been killed!"

Ressler looked taken aback to be on the receiving end of Red's vitriol and Liz couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her fellow agent. Red was apoplectic—it was easy to see why he was feared even among his fellow criminals. Come to think of it, if this was how he'd behaved while he tried to get Lorca to give up Kornish, she would have paid good money to witness it.

It took Ressler a few bewildered moments before he gathered his wits and started yelling back.

"That's rich coming from you, Reddington. What gives you the right—"

Liz zoned the argument out and ushered the two men into the observation room, using her body to shield the hand she had at Red's back. She felt some of the tension drain from his posture and her own anxiety started to settle at their proximity. Meera was already waiting for them, watching The Courier through the one way mirror.

"If you're finished tearing Ressler a new arsehole, I need to borrow him for a little added muscle. I don't feel like getting my hands dirty again today."

* * *

All that was gained from interrogating The Courier and the scavenger hunt through the man's pain-resistant body was the identity of the package—a young man, in this case—and a ticking clock. The situation seemed almost hopeless to Liz and she was ashamed of herself for having so much trouble staying focused on the case. She and Red had drifted towards each other throughout the day, drawn to stand just a bit too close, to listen and observe just a bit too intently, and she prayed none of her coworkers noticed.

When Red requested that Liz accompany him back to his current hideaway so he could give her more information about The Courier's habits, she breathed a sigh of relief. She made a show of rolling her eyes to her colleagues as Red's hand came up briefly to rest at the small of her back before he gestured for her to precede him towards the elevator, but she was glad to have an excuse to finally be alone with him. She didn't really care if the offer was genuine or only a ruse to get her away from prying eyes. She knew it was something she needed if she was ever going to be able to concentrate enough to save the poor kid who'd been buried alive.

They kept a respectable distance until they settled into his car despite the low, insistent buzzing in their veins, because neither of them knew the exact extent of the FBI's surveillance in their own building and their paranoia, in this matter at least, was wise to indulge.

Liz's phone rang as soon as she pulled her door shut. She cursed under her breath when she saw the name on the caller ID, and suffered though another round of Tom trying to make her feel guilty for doing her job.

"Bastard," she whispered, ending the call with an annoyed jab of her finger.

Red had an arm stretched along the back of the seat and watched her expectantly, not even attempting to hide the fact that he'd overheard her conversation. Not that he could have missed it even if he wanted to. Tom hadn't exactly been quiet and neither had she.

"Trouble in paradise?" Red asked, with a smug little twitch of a smile.

"You know what? Screw you." She made to climb out of the car, but he stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm and an apologetic look in his eye. She sighed, pulled the door shut again, and settled back into the seat.

Red stroked his fingers along her arm, toying with the edge of her bandage. "Were you injured?"

"No, that… My cover-up wore off. Ressler saw some of the tattoo."

He met her eyes again, silently asking for permission before he carefully unwrapped the gauze.

They both relaxed instantly; only part of the word 'what' was really legible. She hadn't been able to work up the courage to check for herself.

"This is dangerous," she said, trying her hardest to suppress a shiver as he continued to stroke her arm, this time without the barrier of the bandage between her skin and his.

"They'll find out at some point. It's bound to happen. They already have mine on file, but I have enough tattoos, they can't tell which is significant. Thankfully, what you said doesn't draw much attention. Ressler and Cooper, though… When they see yours, they'll know what to look for."

This time she failed to suppress the shiver; she let him slide his arm down across her shoulders and pull her closer to his side. Inevitable or not, it was still disconcerting to hear him say 'when' rather than 'if'.

"What can they do to us?"

"I don't know, I don't know. They'd judge you for it, that's for sure. Other than that… it's not as if we have any choice in the matter. Being someone's soulmate isn't a crime."

"You're not usually so optimistic about the pure intentions of government employees."

He gave a humorless laugh. "That's an understatement if I've ever heard one," he said, and pressed his lips to her cheek like he had the morning after the Kornish ordeal; she let out a sigh she hoped didn't sound nearly as contented as it felt. After a moment, he moved to press another kiss to her jaw below her ear and she stiffened in his arms.

"Red…"

His breath tickled her cheek as he rested his forehead against her temple and said, "I know, I'm sorry, I should have better self-control than that."

"The pull can't always be this strong. It feels like an addiction."

"It does. And you're right. This isn't a normal reaction. There are documented cases of soulmates knowing when the other was in danger or in pain, but it generally only happened once or twice in a lifetime, not every other week. We're obviously in an unusual situation here."

"I couldn't sense you before we met. At least I don't think I could. It's hard to say for sure."

"Who knows how many random inexplicable bouts of anxiety might have coincided with my misadventures?"

"Do you think you've ever sensed me?"

His face fell, his brows furrowing as he turned away, his eyes losing focus on anything in particular as he remembered. "Once," he said solemnly. "Once that I'm sure of. I didn't know what was happening at the time, but now… now I do."

The memory seemed painful for him. Liz could only think of one moment in her life that might have brought about that reaction and she couldn't help but feel the slightest twinge of guilt that he had gone through the fear that she had felt that night, even if she couldn't help it. To him, it surely must have seemed unwarranted and out of the blue. She wondered how he dealt with it.

"It was the fire, wasn't it? You must have felt it."

For a moment, he seemed lost again in the memory. "I did," he said, rubbing at her scar like she did when she was nervous. "Your terror was so strong, it was all I could do to stay conscious. It reminded me of the pure, unadulterated fear of a child, when everything—even fairytale villains—are real to you and can pose a real threat to your safety. I suppose that makes sense now; I really was experiencing fear through the eyes of a child." He shrugged, as if this was the sort of thing one discusses every day. "I always was terrified of _Hansel and Gretel_," he added, almost as an afterthought.

"My father used to borrow these worn out fairytale movies from the neighbor kids when we finally got a VCR," she said, unsure why she felt the need to share something personal as well. Perhaps to make up for lying to him about the fire when he first asked. He never called her on it, even now. "The animation was a little too uncanny valley for me to deal with and they all scared the crap out of me, but I didn't want him to feel bad, so I watched them. I cried myself to sleep whenever we watched _Little Red Riding Hood_; I never had the heart to tell him."

"Mmm. The fear of being led astray, of discovering someone you love isn't who you expected them to be, that's pretty universal. And rather prescient, considering."

It didn't take a genius to understand Red's implication.

Tom was her rock, but that rock was eroding quicker and quicker with each disagreement and misunderstanding. With every passing day, she felt herself growing more distrustful of her husband and more receptive to the possibility that Red might be right about him. Even if Red was wrong, she was starting to see a side of Tom that was ugly no matter how you looked at it.

"He really isn't who he says he is, is he?"

"Believe me, Lizzy, you're going to get through this," he said, "and you'll no doubt come out stronger on the other end." He pulled her tighter into his side and bent to press another chaste kiss to her cheek. "And don't worry—you may not need the hunter to save you in your version of the story, but he'll be by your side all the same."


	4. Chapter 4

Red paced the book-filled room like a caged animal. He should have hand delivered the report to Lizzy, at least then he would've been able to see her and make sure she received it before she left work. If this case taught him anything, it was that relying on a courier to deliver his packages wasn't always the best choice. She hadn't answered his call and he hadn't heard back from Dembe yet, who he had sent at the last minute to keep watch on her house. And now Grey was being… difficult.

"I don't understand. You turned yourself in for her. You've put yourself in danger for her. Now you wasted your only opportunity to access these files for her, too. If the husband is such a problem, why don't you just have him killed? Take out the competition once and for all and then maybe you can get her out of your system."

"He's not just some competition in the way of a petty conquest, you f—" It took every ounce of willpower Red possessed to keep himself from finishing that sentence. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples, willing himself not to bite Grey's head completely off. "Besides," he said, his tone more measured, "that didn't work out so well last time. He's not an easy man to kill."

"Either that or Zamani botched it. You should have let me do it. You still could."

"No. We can't take that kind of risk, not now. This situation is delicate and a hell of a lot more complicated than you seem to realize." Grey opened his mouth to argue, but Red cut him off. "Don't even think about it, Grey. That's an order."

The muffled sound of an engine rumbling drew Red and Grey's attention to the window. "I have to think about the future," Red said quietly, as he watched Lizzy climb out of her car.

Grey shook his head and stalked off to answer the door. "I hope this future is worth it."

The whole world fell away as Lizzy stepped into the room; Red's heart clenched at the anger and confusion and loss playing across her face, but his feet felt like they were fastened to the floor and he couldn't go to her, not with Grey in the room.

Lizzy jumped when the door clicked shut behind her, leaving her alone with Red.

"You got the report." It wasn't a question; it was beyond obvious that she had. "I should have given it to you myself. I should have been there when you read it, I don't know what I was—"

Swiftly, she crossed the room and took hold of his hands, letting the contact begin to calm them both. The buzzing in their veins faded to something tolerable as their breathing gradually began to synchronize.

Once the amplified reaction to one another's distress dissipated, Lizzy's jumble of conflicting emotions still remained. He wanted to take her into his arms, but he resisted; he settled for a chaste kiss on her forehead before stepping back and giving her space to work out her lingering agitation.

Lizzy pulled a file out of the bag she had slung over her shoulder.

"I take it you got this because you let Seth express his gratitude to you. Why would you do that for me? You could have…" She tossed the file onto the coffee table and started pacing, unwittingly retracing his own steps from earlier. "If that report is true, my husband is a killer. An assassin."

"He's not really your husband, Lizzy. Tom Keen is an alias, like all the others. Your marriage is not legally binding. If that's any consolation."

"It is but it isn't. I'm still stuck with the creep. He's been calling all day. He's even angrier now than he was when you overheard him. What if he knows that I know? What if he went for the box and could tell I touched it?"

"You put it back the way you found it, I'm sure."

"I fired a bullet to run against the database. At this point I'm ready to believe he would be anal enough to notice. Do you think our marriage is just a cover or is there something more to it? And why me, specifically? Is it because of my position? Did he want to get in on the ground floor with a brand new FBI agent, who maybe wouldn't be as suspicious? Or am I just an easy mark?"

Red took a deep breath, weighing what he should tell her. He could claim ignorance without it technically being a lie. Tom was clearly there because of him, but he didn't have the slightest idea what the man's endgame was. However, Lizzy's faith in him outside the comfort he could provide was worth more than keeping her completely in the dark.

"I believe he was tasked to infiltrate your life in order to get to me."

Lizzy's brows furrowed; she stopped pacing long enough to search his face. "That doesn't make any sense. A month ago, you were only a name on a wanted poster to me. I've been married to Tom for _two years_."

"I understand this is confusing, but—"

"Who the hell is doing this?"

"I don't know." Lizzy scoffed and he couldn't help but raise a condescending eyebrow. "If I did, do you really think I would let it stand? Give me some credit here."

"Do you know I've been having nightmares about him?"

"I'd be surprised if you weren't."

"Well, isn't that wonderful? I can't even—" She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, and shook her head as if to clear it. "I don't want to fight with you. I don't have anywhere else to turn in this mess. I don't have any close friends, all our friends are _his_ friends. My colleagues, maybe they're good for a job reference, but they don't really trust me, let alone like me. I can't even trust my own father to share things with me because he's afraid I'll worry too much."

Red took her hand, placed it flat against his chest over his heart.

"You can trust me," he said, his voice earnest, sincere. He held her gaze until it dropped to watch his thumb caressing the back of her hand.

"That's the craziest part about all this. I _do_. The person I trust most in this world is number four on the FBI's most wanted list. Do you realize how fucked up that is? I understand that it's you and you have a vested interest in it being you, but can you take a step back and look at it?"

Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked rapidly to try to clear them. They were tears of frustration more than sadness—he felt that frustration as clearly as he would have if it had been his own and, in a way, it was. Between Tom and Red's blacklist, he and Lizzy were in a crazy, unpredictable situation even without the added complication of being soulmates. He wasn't accustomed to feeling so ill-prepared.

He urged her closer and wrapped his arms around her, careful not to push too far too quickly. When she returned his embrace, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"I don't want this," she said, her voice breaking as she wept into the crook of his neck. "Any of it."

"I know. I know, I'm sorry."

Red held her until her sobs dissipated and she felt stable enough to step back; he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dried her face, carefully cleaning the smudges off her skin.

"I think I ruined your shirt," Lizzy said, straightening the damp collar that no doubt sported the same stains from her mascara that now covered his handkerchief.

"Doesn't matter."

"Thank you." She shot him a crooked, sheepish smile that caused another layer of ice around his heart to melt. "I feel less… on the verge of a total meltdown."

"Crying can be cathartic," he offered.

"You know that's not why." She traced her fingers along his neck, pausing at the tiny scar she gave him the first time she tried to kill him, when the mere thought of being his soulmate was enough to drive her to murder. A lot had changed since then.

"Mmm. For the sake of argument, if proximity calms, and skin contact soothes, one might assume the more intimate the contact, the more effective it is at treating these… symptoms." He smiled when he noticed her gaze dropping to his mouth; her lips parted slightly as she tracked the movement.

"So, again for the sake of argument"—he cupped the back of her head, threading his fingers through her hair—"if I were to"—he began to pull her subtly closer—"do this"—he captured her lips in a soft, tentative kiss; she exhaled roughly through her nose and pulled him towards her by the lapels, tilting her head and deepening the kiss.

In that moment, the imminent threat of Tom Keen ceased to exist; there were no blacklisters, no FBI, no Concierge of Crime. There was nothing at all in their world but heat and pressure and the quickening of blood in their veins. The sheer rightness of the kiss was overwhelming and the pair quickly lost themselves in it.

Reality crashed down around Red only when Lizzy's fingers brushed scar tissue. He wrenched himself away and put a few quick steps between them, stumbling into a bookcase while she backed up until her thighs hit his desk. They stood watching each other, wild-eyed and more than a little frightened, and struggled to get their rapid breathing back to normal.

Their clothing was in complete disarray. Red's shirt and vest were unbuttoned, his belt unbuckled, and Lizzy had pulled his undershirt from his waistband to get at his skin. Her jacket had somehow found its way over the arm of the sofa, half a room away. She turned her back to readjust her bra and he realized he must have managed to unclasp it. He took the opportunity to hastily tuck his undershirt back in.

Red ran a hand over the back of his head, dazed and bewildered, and sank down onto the sofa. Kisses on the cheek were one thing. Now that he'd had a proper taste of her, he wasn't sure he would be able to put it out of his mind. From this point forward, he knew would crave it, crave _her_, even worse than he already did. Lizzy seemed to be on the same page.

"Well, shit. If that's what kissing you is like, I wonder what would happen if we ever—"

He put his head in his hands and groaned. "God, please don't even think about it."

He felt an echo of secondhand arousal mix with his own and he looked up in time to see her flush.

"You realize telling me not to think about it only compounds the problem," she said, rubbing at her scar self-consciously.

"Yes. Yes, I do. Damn it, this is such an awful distraction."

Red felt a sinking sensation in his stomach and caught her jacket disappear out of the corner of his eye. Lizzy was halfway to the door before he managed to turn around.

"No, wait, I didn't mean you should leave. It's not your fault we react to each other like this. We'll have to find a way to get this under control. Sending you into the situation blind is a terrible idea and it's definitely not something I'm going to do just because it's getting more and more difficult to keep myself from…"

"Keep yourself from what?"

"I figured it would be better if I didn't verbalize it, but I think you probably have a pretty good idea." He leaned forward, poured two mason jars full of Fredrick's mystery liquor, and held one out to her. "Sit, please. Have a drink with me and we can decide how we're going to handle Tom."

Liz took the jar from Red and sat an arm's length away on the couch. She perched on the edge like she was ready to bolt at any second, but it wasn't long before she sank back into the cushions and took a cautious sip from the makeshift glass.

The unconscious need to be near each other soon took precedence over their self-imposed distance and the longer they planned and brainstormed, the closer they crept towards each other. She shifted her leg so her foot would press against his. He played absently with the wisps of hair at the nape of her neck. By the time they worked out the logistics, they found themselves pressed up against each other shoulder to knee, mere inches between their faces; his fingers traced soothing patterns under the hem of her shirt while hers rested high on his inner thigh, anything but soothing. They broke eye contact and pulled away at the same moment.

"Wow. This is…"

"I know."

"We might have to face the possibility that we'll have to get it out of our systems someday. Once we deal with Tom—"

"I don't want to get you out of my system! I want…" She put a hesitant hand at the back of his neck, rubbing her thumb through the hair there. He heaved a heavy sigh. "It's possible scratching the itch will only make it worse," he said, staring at his feet.

"Well, anything's better than unconsciously undressing each other during a debriefing at the Post Office."

"I hate the implication that this is only attraction in overdrive. Being someone's soulmate isn't just a sexual connection. It's certainly not all I feel about you and it never has been."

Lizzy coaxed his head up so she could meet his eyes. "You can't just say something like that and not expect me to be curious."

Red swallowed hard. "You were right when you said I couldn't have known we were soulmates when I chose you. I've cared about you. For a long time. I admired your drive, your ambition, your ability to rise above your past. And I only had second- and third-hand information—it can't hold a candle to the reality of you. It wasn't at all what I planned, Lizzy, but I… I think I would have fallen in love with you eventually regardless of whether or not you were my soulmate."

"None of that explains _why_ you chose me."

"No, I suppose it doesn't."

He could tell she wasn't satisfied with his evasiveness, but she didn't press him. She poured herself a couple more fingers of whatever it was they were drinking and sat back with her side against his.

Someday, she would know the whole truth about their connection. For now, he would rest easy—as easy as he ever did, at least—knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt he'd chosen the right person.

After all, fate apparently agreed with him.


End file.
